“Sometimes there is no next time, no time-outs, no second chances; sometimes it’s now or never.”

–

Alan Bennett

===

Life is tricky. While there often seems to be unending line of second chances standing outside your door sometimes … well … you look outside one morning and they have all gone to have a scone at starbucks. Gone. All the second chances gone. And you are alone.

This is “now” and you can’t play the ‘next time’ card or ask the next second chance to come on in. You can’t say “uhm … can you wait a minute?” <until one of the second chances comes back from the bathroom>.

Nope.

Its now or never.

And this gets even trickier because while I suggested a line of second chances typically hangs out outside your door — they don’t really stand around. You just kind of envision, and hope, they are hanging around.

What that means is this is a judgment call on your part.

Now. If it helps the anxiety wracking your body at the moment, the odds are with you. Life DOES give you a shitload of second chances and timeouts and next times. Probably more than you could ever use in a lifetime as a matter of fact.

But that’s not the point.

This is about the moment when the odds say “oops … none of them available.” It says “now or never”. Life walks right on up to you and says … ‘what’s your call?’

I would note that recognizing this moment is actually a judgment call – judgement as in actually recognizing all the second chances are gone and ‘this is it.’ Yup. Life doesn’t say (in an aside whisper) … “Hey, just so you know, this is one of those no time out, no second chance, no next time moments.”

(sorry about that)

You just gotta know. I guess the point of this is to remind everyone that while Life is extremely generous in giving time outs and second chances, there are going to be now or never moments.

And you have to be prepared for them.

And do your best to recognize them.

And make a call.

Oh. And, I imagine, it is also important to recognize afterwards, if you fucked up and didn’t see it, that it was a ‘now or never’ moment. That is important because … well … you cannot undo or go back or ask for a second chance. Yup. There is no going back, or undoing, or even a glimpse of a ‘do-over.’ Because, well, it was a now or never moment.

It is done with you and you are done with it.

It is gone.

Move on.

Don’t beat yourself up (wasted energy).

Don’t try and fix it.

Live & learn.

It sucks but, trust me, more often than not you will get another ‘now or never’ opportunity again one day <whether you want it or not>

And … at that moment … remember … “sometimes there is no next time” because it pays to recognize one of these moments when they arise. It pays because, uhm, now or never moments tend to matter.

At some point in our lives pretty much all of us have had a little bit of ‘I want to save the world’in us. Of course, that was before the world & Life beat it out of us and suggested that maybe we aim a little lower.

Ok.

A lot lower.

Well. The world, and Life, was, and is, wrong. This is one of those things we should never have beaten out of us.

Let me repeat.

NEVER let it get beaten out of you.

Let me tell you why this may be one of the most important things we should pay attention to.

There is no lack of problems in today’s world.

There is no lack of people who need saving.

There is no lack of ideas that need saving.

And let’s be clear … you do not need an “everything is fucked and we’re all going to die” attitude to see this.

It just is.

Its quite possible when you do ponder this it may appear easier to just say “I need to focus on my own happiness” .

Well. Research has shown over and over again that our true happiness and self worth is attained when we aspire to being dynamic beyond our own purpose <be part of something bigger than just ‘me’>. Our happiness is actually more like ‘meaningfulness’ and meaningfulness is most likely achieved when our purpose isn’t about us (self), but rather investing energy in just making things better. There are a number of people who I highly recommend (Zach Mercurio, Perry Timms, Gustavo Razzetti, Dr. Jason Fox) who will speak to this thought with research and psychological underpinnings.

I take a simple approach to the topic.

Here is a Life truth.

Life can suck if you let it.

And things will always remain sucky if you let it.

You can either do something or not do something. And you can do some important things or you can do unimportant things.

That’s the gig. Simple as that.

But here is what I can tell you for sure. Doing something … and doing important things … gives meaning & purpose and all that Maslow stuff which makes you feel self-value. In other words, in a world that may suck or at least may appear to suck <and has some obvious sucky things about it>, if you choose to try and save the world in some way you will not suck.

You don’t have to save the world all at once. You can start saving small … a penny at a time. All you gotta do is choose any frickin’ penny you see lying on the ground <that’s a bad metaphor for ‘some issue’ by the way>.

Just pick a problem and start saving the world one penny at a time. Before you know it you will have made a dollar difference … and maybe more if you are really lucky.

There are so many to choose from you cannot go wrong in saving the world … you can start saving at any time in fact.

Will you solve it? Most likely not.

Will you contribute to the solution? Most likely yes.

Most importantly … will you make a difference? Yes.

Like small pebbles dropped in a pond the ripple reaches much much farther than you can see from where you stand.

And you know what?

You will feel better about yourself. Even if you are only one penny richer at the end of the day … well … you are richer.

So, maybe, rather than falling in love with yourself or investing in ‘being resent’ or even actively seeking to make yourself happy, you might do well to get to work on solving the problems that prevent the world from being truly exceptional. You become richer by making the world around you a richer place to live.

By the way.

If along the way you are the only person you save … well … you have done good, kid.

“When we first met … you asked me a question to which I gave a stupid answer, you asked me whether I wanted to live and I said “Yes.“

Actually, Miss Page, I want more, much more. I want to create, to make something big out of something little.”

–

Boris Lermontov

===================

Ah.

Maybe I am cynical.

Maybe I am simply becoming a curmudgeon.

Maybe I am actually right on this topic.

I think pop psychology makes us lazy with regard to how we view life. We are encouraged to ‘be positive’ and ‘live life to its fulllest’ and be happy we are alive. Pretty much nice sounding pabulum. Pretty much useless advice.

It is also sometimes suggested that Life is big & full, therefore, living it fills up so much space and time that if you do just that … live it … you should be satisfied because, what the hell, there isn’t a whole lot more room for anything else because it is so big & full just by living it. This seems to suggest that simply living life, and making it through life, is some achievement in and of itself.

Well.

Maybe we shouldn’t look at Life, in itself, as something so big & full that there isn’t room for anything else.

Maybe Life is littler than we think. Little moments. Little experiences. Little people. Little lies. Little truths. Little color. Little things that make up what we call our current Life.

Maybe we should want more.

No. No maybe. We should want more … much more.

We should want to create. Create something. And I don’t mean make something, but rather create, fashion, something big out of something little.

This is probably the one place in our sometimes self indulgent world where I wish more of us actually weren’t comfortable with what we have … and wanted more.

Instead of settling we want more. Instead of settling for what is we want more of what could be.

We want to make something big out of something little.

Oh. About “little.” The truth is most of Life is made up of little things. Therefore, if you don’t do anything else but live it … well … in the end i imagine you live a little life. I’m fairly sure no one wants to purposefully live a little Life so maybe we should desire to make something big out of something little.

Maybe we should embrace the thought we are all architects of our own lives.

Maybe we should purposefully seek to build something big.

Maybe the pursuit of “what could be” is Purpose in and of itself.

Maybe ‘much more’ isn’t things but rather doing things that make little big.

You don’t understand irony, or ethnicity, or eccentricity, or poetry, or the simple joy of being a regular at the diner on your block.

I love that.

You don’t drink coffee or alcohol. You don’t over eat. You don’t cry when you’re alone. You don’t understand sarcasm. You plod through life in a neat, colorless, caffeine free, dairy free, conflict free way.

I’m bold and angry and tortured and tremendous and I notice when someone has changed their hair part, or when someone is wearing two very distinctly different shades of black or when someone changes the natural temperament of their voice on the phone.

I don’t give out empty praise.

I’m not complacent or well-adjusted.

I can’t spend fifteen minutes breathing and stretching and getting in touch with myself.

I can’t spend three minutes finishing an article.

I check my answering machine nine times every day and I can’t sleep at night because I feel that there is so much to do and fix and change in the world, and I wonder every day if I am making a difference and if I will ever express the greatness within me, or if I will remain forever paralyzed by muddled madness inside my head.

I’ve wept on every birthday I’ve ever had because life is huge and fleeting and I hate certain people and certain shoes and I feel that life is terribly unfair and sometimes beautiful and wonderful and extraordinary but also numbing and horrifying and insurmountable and I hate myself a lot of the time.

The rest of the time I adore myself and I adore my life in this city and in this world we live in.

This huge and wondrous, bewildering, brilliant, horrible world.”

=

Jessica, from Kissing Jessica Stein

——–

Well. I love this monologue pulled from Kissing Jessica Stein.

I love that it sounds like she is a disaster, but it really reflects the complexity residing in, well, any and all of us.

What do I mean? I believe that within each of us resides a kaleidoscope of fragmented pieces of different people and feelings and likes & dislikes. And all of these things swirl around viewing the world from a variety of perspectives.

All of which tends to end up muddling things in our heads and make us question whether we are being the best we can be.

And if we question whether we are at our best then we certainly question whether we are making a difference.

Yeah. There is an inextricable link between those two things.

Yeah. We don’t make that connection enough.

Hmmmmm. Maybe that is why the world is so brilliant … and bewildering.

Brilliant in that we can see the change that can, and could, be. In us and in the world.

That is called Hope.

Bewildering in that because aligning our ‘best’ to when we can actually make a difference <which is a moment that occurs significantly less often than you would imagine> is sometimes difficult to see and experience.

That creates something called Despair.

And therein lies the huge & wondrous & bewildering & brilliant & horribleness of the world … the constant tug of war between hope & despair. That may sound extreme … if not poetic and possibly even too philosophical … but if you think about it … our moments in life are far too often simply defined by feelings of hope <for something better> or despair <that the moment wasn’t the best it could, or should, have been … and maybe it never will be>.

I tried to think of an example of the constant tug between the bewildering & brilliance … that almost irreconcilable angst of hope clashing with despair … and then I found this:

——-

bookmad:

do you ever just think about how shitty you are compared to other writers and give up hope?

Step 1.

Go on goodreads

Step 1.

Look up any book you think is worthy of 5 stars, look at the break down of the star rating.

Someone, somewhere thought that book was a 1 star.

Step 2.

Now go to a book you rate as 1 star.

Again go to the break down… I bet someone has rated it 5 star worthy.

Step 3.

Stop being so hard on yourself.

Someone will love what you’ve written.

Yes, it’s important to be proud of what you’re doing, but I guarantee you are being too hard on yourself.

——-

Lastly. To be clear. The huge and wondrous and horrible bewildering brilliant thing is not really the world. It is us. It is our heads.

We each hold a desire to be huge & wondrous & as brilliant as we can be. In feeling that we naturally get tugged between hope & despair all the while struggling between them in the infiniteness of a relatively indifferent world chuckling at our attempts.

I do tend to believe everyone, at least a little, longs for something big. That is simply being human. Yet most of us are taught day after day after day to collect wood and do tasks. Wood?

—–

If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.

Antoine de Saint-Exupery

—–

Yeah. The world, society, business, our managers, are more likely than not to encourage us, and focus us, on collecting wood (metaphor for ‘doing’, tasks and “the grind” type stuff). However, most of us long for the immensity of the sea.

That conflict can often make life be quite bewildering and, worse, we can often look like a disaster to ourselves.Oh. And there will never be a lack of people ready to point out that disaster.

Ignore them.

Just appreciate the irony, the absurdity, the chaos, the huge & brilliance & wondrous aspects of the world.

Adore it and embrace it.

You will not only be a little calmer about shit, but you most likely will not actually be a disaster and, if you work hard, get a little lucky, you may get to enjoy the immensity of the world.

“At the end of the day, we have to value ourselves as more than just an image.

An image is just an image. If you want more, look deeper within.

Are you a good friend? A kind companion? How do you treat others?

Those are the things that are a better definition of beauty.’

—-

Sara Ramirez

===============

I imagine all of us want to be seen by everyone as ‘something.’ In my mind this ‘something’ isn’t fame or some high falutin’ title or even being rich, instead, its to be recognized characteristically as something. This is not something shallow, but something a little deeper that defines you. Yes. I think we all want, in some degree, to be recognized for character, not some material or tangible thing.

That said. This means, in reality, driving toward that ‘something’ is incredibly fairly innocuous & incredibly difficult to define in a way everyone knows what good is and what bad is. The ‘something’ will vary from person to person meaning a shitload of us want to be seen as smart, or well rounded, or beautiful, or funny, or … well … pick your personal poison.

I could suggest that is kind of a shallow something.

Okay.

I will.

That is a shallow ‘something.’

And what makes that shallow worse is that by making that a fairly significant portion of how we choose to define ourselves we spend an inordinate amount of time & energy planning for ‘someday’ when that ‘something’ is played back to us as our defining characteristic.

Uhm.

Well.

If you are not careful … someday stealthily sneaks up on you as ‘today … and then yesterday … and then day by day it just becomes your Life.

Unfortunately Life is not just an image.

Unfortunately Life is ultimately not that shallow.

Unfortunately you have to leave the shallow end of the pool at some point and venture into the deep end in order to find … well … value.

Despite what marketing & advertising & branding folk may suggest, image is not everything and image does not equal any meaningful value.

Despite what Instagram suggests, image is not everything and image does not equal any meaningful value.

This doesn’t mean it isn’t tempting nor does it mean society doesn’t spend an inordinate amount of energy trying to convince you image matters.

But the truth is image without substance is simply a façade … a mask.

I can unequivocally state that the number of people who can maintain an entire life behind a mask is minuscule. It is extremely difficult to maintain that façade for an entire Life. It is like trying to play out an act … forever. Someone can do it for a while and fewer can figure out how to build the trappings which can hold the act together, but to hold all of that together for a Lifetime takes some luck, some clever skills, some bravado to appease the cynics & skeptics and, ultimately, some ability to keep the lack of substance out of the spotlight & questioning.

Suffice it to say … it takes a lot of work to wear a mask an entire Life.

And maybe that is my larger point.

We all want to eventually be seen as ‘something.’ And we all would prefer that something be of value to those who recognize it and of value to our self-worth.

That means.

If you are not careful you can spend a significant portion of your Life chasing some definition, some ‘something’ you are recognized by — that has little or no real value to oneself.

By the way. I am not suggesting this is easy. Society encourages shallowness. It can do so in a variety of ways but the main way is simple – measurement.

The shallowest ‘somethings’ are easy to see, easy to assess and easy to measure versus either society standards or versus others. Likes, followers, being labeled an ‘influencer’ or, heck, even earning some ‘label’ which could be construed as approval are all measurements which make the shallow aspects of Life more tangible.

The deepest ‘somethings’ – good, soul, character, integrity … shit like that — are difficult to measure and, frankly, the definition is earned over time and with consistent behavior. You cannot expect instant gratification, at least external gratification, if you pursue a ‘deeper something.’ In other words, you are less likley to gain the visible rwards in as large a quanitty versus pursiing more shallow value.

Sigh.

Well. Here is what I know:

“At the end of the day, we have to value ourselves as more than just an image.

An image is just an image. If you want more, look deeper within.

Image is just an image.

How about this.

Image is like masturbation.

A deeper something is like making love.

I tend to believe we all want more.

We all want that kind of self-value that is deeper.

We all want more than just an image.

….. impact of Warehouse of Images (before Instagram existed) …..

It is a Life truth that Image is seductive. And, in fact, this is where technology has made Life more difficult. As Alvin Toffler pointed out in Future Shock before the internet our visual comparisons were limited by the sphere of physical contact with external interspersed creating a semi-controlled universe of ‘standards.’ With the advent of the internet Toffler warned us the sphere would increase exponentially which would be additional psychological pressures upon people they had not faced before. I would argue he was prescient and much of the social pressure young people feel today is driven by a larger universe in Instagram, Facebook, etc. of unrealistic comparisons.

The good news? Shallow pursuit of personal value is, well, shallow. And most of us, given the opportunity to pursue a deeper more meaningful value will choose that path.

We find that path attractive because, well, it is a Life truth that if you want more than image, and look deeper within for that ‘something’, you will find a better definition of yourself.

“Understanding why was more interesting than understanding who. The story of why things are the way they are is heartbreakingly beautiful.”

———

Keegan Allen

=============

Ok. This is a lot about some harsh business truth (a good idea shouldn’t be implemented if it isnt a good fit for a business) as well as a different business perspective on a different “Why” and why this perspective matters.

I admit. I chafe a little on the Simon Sinek “people buy your Why”thought mostly because I believe it is the wrong “Why” question. His Why is a slightly misguided and oft misused Purpose Why. My Why gets to the core of what makes a business a business – its soul not its Purpose. By the way. This ‘soul’ can be an amalgamation of some wacky adopted bad things (beliefs, process, systems) and good things (loyalty, heart, integrity, beliefs).

Regardless. Yeah. I am one of those wacky business people who will listen for hours to stories about why things are the way they are at a business. Even wackier? I am not one of those business people who act surprised when I hear all the “why it is what it is” stories.

Many people want to hear about the people.

Many people want to hear about the ideas … or even what someone thinks or what they want.

Many people want to let others talk about whatever they want to talk about.

All of that is well and good. But me? Give me the story of “why the voodoo you do is done this way.”

I am actually surprised more businesses don’t ask that question or are as curious about it. I am surprised because if you know the ‘why’ you at least have a fighting chance of offering something doable & constructive. In fact. While many business people shake their heads over all the crazy “why shit happens” stories the truth is … well … that crazy stuff actually offers the truth. The ‘why’ gives us reality. Bad reality sometimes? Sure. But reality nonetheless.

Far too often we offer business folk offer solutions, and many times really good solutions, which are simply non practical for the business and people we are offering it to. Crazy as it sounds … not every business can implement a good idea. In fact trying to implement a good idea in a business whose “why it is” doesn’t align with the idea more often than not creates a nightmare idea.

A business is a business. It comes with all the warts and positives gained throughout the years.

To be clear.

Yes. I like to hear the objective.

Yes. I absolutely love to hear the vision <assuming someone actually has one>.

But when push comes to shove while all that stuff is fine and dandy, but if you don’t know why things are the way they are or why that objective hasn’t been attained yet or why that vision has been sitting on some shelf collecting dust for several years, you are screwed. You are screwed because “why things are the way they are”, 99% of the time, have a reason. You may not like the reason, or reasons, but it is a reflection of reality.

It doesn’t mean you cannot change some of the whys.

It doesn’t mean you can’t jump, side step or tunnel under some of the whys.

But why shit is the way it is reflects the realities of that particular business. And you either have to face that fact or ignore at your own peril. Ignoring it most likely means whatever great idea you are offering that business is doomed.

I cannot tell you how many really good ideas I have seen die because they just didn’t take into account the ‘why things are the way they are’ in that business. It is the amateur business consultant who suggests that ‘with the proper internal alignment initiative we can get this idea up & running to the benefit of the business’ for a businesses. They are amateurs because they assume you can reshape all the “why it is” to make it fit the idea.

I don’t think I am that smart, but suffice it to say I am fairly sure most experienced business people can see good solutions for any business fairly quickly once they get up to speed on that business and its situation.

Most people can do that.

But solutions are not all round pegs and businesses are not all round holes. I cannot tell you how many really good solutions I have tossed in the trash simply because they would never be implemented by the business it would have been really good for. Suffice it to say … a lot.

I would note that the opening quote resonated with me mostly because of the last thing I just wrote.

It is heartbreaking to sit in some business meeting and you have the great solution right there at your fingertips and you know after listening to the ‘why things are the way they are’ stories you have to leave it right there on the table and shove it somewhere into some unlabeled folder.

That doesn’t mean you can’t come up with something else that helps. But, oh, it is heartbreaking when the best solution is just not doable.

What helps me get over it?

Maddening or not I find the ‘why things are the way they are’ stories beautiful — beautifully tragic, beautifully fortunate, beautifully doomed and beautifully hopeful. And I think it helps me better find the “beautiful solution.”

In the end … business is almost always a beautiful struggle between “why it is what it is” and “what I would like to do.”

All that said.

Yes. Some “why shit is done this way” should be dismantled. But for today, at this time and on this topic, people should sit back and ponder the thought most businesses need to get shit done now and not dismantle shit now & get shit done later. Ponder that because many of us who get businesses “unstuck” (consultants) cannot afford to offer unusable great ideas to functionally dysfunctional (companies with quirks) businesses. Our job is to elevate them. Sometimes this means holding a great idea that is right for their business until you can figure out how to make the organization right for the idea. Until then? You develop a beautiful idea matched to the beauty of the organization that exists.

How can emptiness be so heavy? When I saw this ‘six word story’ I stopped. It is one of those thoughts so incredibly obvious yet so insightful and so simple … you have to think.

How can something not there, like emptiness or empty space, carry something tangible?

How can emptiness, nothing, be so much of a something?

——-

“We are terrorized and flattened by trivialities, we are eaten up by nothing.”

Charles Bukowski

——-

Well. The truth is Emptiness is a burden. A heavy burden.

And emptiness really isn’t nothing. It is made up of, well, a lot of stuff. It is a hole filled with the remnants of everything left behind. Of all things gone but not forgotten. This could include regrets, memories, past decisions and even people no longer there.

If you think about it, all the things that have touched our lives could reside in this emptiness. Paradoxically, their absence may mean that their presence is gone yet their figurative weight, their gravitas, remains.

——

“Sometimes you can only feel something by its absence. By the empty spaces it leaves behind. “

Gayle Forman

——–

I imagine I could offer up some flippant trite suggestions on how you can put your emptiness on a diet. Thoughts on ‘how to shed the unwanted weight.’ Or maybe suggest we think about all the silly things we do and feel which create the weight in things that are, frankly, not really there.

I will not.

——-

“You can decorate absence however you want ― but you’re still going to feel what’s missing.”

Siobhan Vivia

——

I will not because I tend to believe emptiness will always be heavy. It will always be heavier than it should as well as heavier than we probably want. Suffice it to say emptiness = weight. Therefore, if you feel some emptiness you will be burdened with some weight. Conversely, no emptiness, no weight.

I will only suggest that we become better at carrying that weight — the burden. The emptiness will always remain <albeit we may fill it with some things which decorate the emptiness in things that make it a little less apparent> and we just learn to carry it better.

I apologize if that sounds ‘less than positive’ or not enough of a ‘here is how to shed emptiness’ type advice but, pragmatically, I tend to believe emptiness isn’t something that goes away. If something has earned emptiness status, in that it was important enough that you felt its absence, I hesitate to believe it will magically waft away like smoke.

Emptiness is simply more substantial than smoke. Emptiness is more substantial than nothingness.

Anyway.

How can emptiness be so heavy? Because that which makes up emptiness is something. In fact. Typically a bunch of somethings that matter.

Every year around “Black Friday” I get asked about the value of marketing in a capitalistic society. Here is my view on whether Marketing is evil (or ethical versus unethical). Vilhjamur (from the quote) was a kick ass anthropologist (known for his description of the “Blond Eskimo” which is a Copper Inuit), his discovery of new lands in the Arctic, his approach to travel and exploration, and his theories of health and diet. I am not sure what the hell he knew about advertising, but he did say the quote I used.

I believe marketing people generally fall into three buckets.

1. Those who fabricate unimportant truths and tell you that they are important <these people are hacks and should be fired and told to pick up trash on the sides of highways>

2. Those who use existing unimportant truths and convince you that they are important <this is the largest group and will vary on a spectrum between those who do this knowingly – which puts them close to the highway garbage category – and those who are blissfully ignorant of what they are doing>

3. Those who take important truths and tell you that they are important <scarily this group may have the toughest job because we people are consistently uninterested in many important truths>

It would be nice to suggest this is a simple 1 to 3 scale or, at minimum, a one to 5 scale, but I believe someone could quite successfully argue this three group scoring would be a 1 to 10 scale with lots of broad interpretation and lots of caveats & excuses. Before any marketing person starts blathering about with caveats & excuses please make sure you read Bill Bernbach’s “Do this or Die” advertisement he wrote to advertising & marketing people (see marketing is evil part 2).

All that said I empathize with people who suggest marketing is evil (evil being a broader term for “convincing people to buy shit they don’t really need or want to buy before they saw the marketing”).

I empathize because if I were to do some scoring I believe I would tend to see a lot of 4’s and 5’s.

I empathize because I just don’t see a lot of marketing that seems to approach selling stuff from a “what is in the best interest of the people” perspective.

Look. I am all for capitalism and selling stuff, but a lot of marketing seems to lack a deeper moral/ethical substance. Not all, but some <a lot>. What makes it even more difficult to defend and discuss is that it is really difficult to put your finger on the core issue/rot/compromise that seems to creep into the internal moral compass one would hope marketers would have.

Why? Because of what I called ‘unimportant truths versus important truths.’ Both of which are truths just with some interpretation issues thrown in to make it all fuzzy.

About marketing truths

A beginning thought:

===============

“Record companies are in the marketing business. Fashion probably wasn’t evil before marketing people got involved and tried to invent themselves and sell it to America’s youth by convincing them that the rest of America’s youth was already partaking. Fashion probably began as a groundswell of beauty: the tribe enjoying the way the buildings look and music sounds, right now, in this moment. That’s valuable because it allows for substance to shift styles. But marketing will do anything to avoid substance and engage only in style. No longer beauty that falls from trees like apples, fashion becomes shiny, scary chemical candy, unnatural and unhealthy.”

Kristen Hersh

==================

Ok. There are so many great thoughts within it … well … it is scary.

‘fashion probably began as a groundswell of beauty.”

Think about this one. This is a big thought, much bigger than just about the fashion industry, & relevant to all of marketing. This whole thought revolves around substance versus style as the issue. It suggests marketing has no substance … hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm … or, maybe better said, it thrives less on substance than style. Here is the bigger thought hidden in there … “valuable because it allows for substance to shift styles.”

So. Substance creates beauty all on its own and marketing creates style to showcase that which may, or may not, have substance. Or, as earlier noted, maybe marketing becomes dependent upon unimportant truths.

Oh, even worse, “created truths” (a creative way of saying ‘lies’).

Ok. Does this alone make marketing evil? No. Ok, well, not all the time.

Because the key is substance and the truths that reside within.

Marketing has a habit of “creating truths.” Yeah … yeah .. yeah … someone is gonna come back and suggest “no, we aren’t creating truths, we are simply uncovering truths.”

Semantics.

Marketing is in the business of tearing apart the fabric of thought and identifying specific threads within the fabric that may be worth pointing out to people. In the end? It is a thread. And not the fabric.

An example?

“Stores Create More Holidays; Tissues Made for Summer, Pink Irons for Fall”

(Wall Street Journal in august 2011)

People see 4 seasons (unless you live in California or the North Pole) but retailers see anywhere from 13 to 20 seasons. All designed to get shoppers into their stores and buy stuff.

The fabric? The season. The threads? The 13 to 20 “seasons” retailers see.

Once again, is this evil, or lying, or even “unimportant truths”? This is a really really gray area. Creating more holidays. They are creating more sales, but inevitably they are just trying to create more interest. They do all of this because retailers want impulse purchases (oh, by the way, which naturally happen to any of us … and marketing doesn’t create this … you <your own head> creates this).

Anyway. Suffice it to say what they do is try to get you in the store more often because the more often you visit the more likely you are to buy stuff. Marketing does all of this quite thoughtfully.

So. Research says the average retail shopper visits a store once every two to three weeks. And shoppers go to the grocery store every seven to 10 days. That means traditional retailers added grocery items hoping to make people make more frequent shopping trips.

Do I begrudge retailers this? Nope. They have a business to run. And by being so “thoughtful” are they evil <in their quasi-manipulation of us shopping folk>? Nope.

And are they lying? Nope.

Let’s tear apart the fabric a little more.

In other words, let me try and and help you understand why there are a boatload of people out there who say marketing is evil. Because this next example really starts talking about “unimportant truths” and, in the end, we are talking about some sense of mental manipulation.

Let’s look how they do it to see if its lying or evil. Let’s look at a retailer’s 4, oops, 13 season year:

– Superbowl

– New Year’s Resolutions (January)

– Lawn and Garden (April)

– Back to School/College(July through August)

– Gifts for children; early entertaining décor (October, November)

– Last-minute gifts, stocking stuffers, food/entertaining (December)

– Health and Wellness January features exercise equipment, supplements and vitamins, items tied to shoppers’ New Year’s resolutions

– Holiday Entertaining and Gifting (November, begins the day after black Friday)

– Organization and Storage(January)

(and I am sure I missed a couple in there as well as I probably got some of the dates wrong, but, you get the point)

Why do they do this? Research shows that people are usually willing to spend more during “special seasons” and even more dollars if they are spending on their children.

Look. I don’t believe marketing is evil, but it is surely “wily smart” in that it is always seeking to find conscious or subconscious triggers to motivate behavior to encourage people to consume things.

But. Here is a truth. Impulse or not, marketing cannot really make someone do something they don’t want to do. I would also point out in today’s world with return guarantees, free return shipping, etc., it is almost next to impossible to maintain what could be construed as impulsive behavior decision (because it can so easily be “undone”).

Marketing is a business. You can certainly expect a retailer, and marketers, to make shopping as much of a science as possible. By “science” I mean by often “managing unimportant truths.” In addition, they will build model stores, displays and end-caps (things at the end of the aisles) to see what makes people buy the most.

Once again, is that evil? Nope. It’s just being smart about your business.

In general I don’t think marketing is the embodiment of the Evil Empire. I think most Marketing people just try to do the best job they can to sell things they represent.

Now. “The best” can be pretty bad at times.

Simplistically. Bad marketing is bad. And ignorance, or doing what you believe is the right thing to do, is no excuse for bad marketing or making the unimportant important. Good marketing sells substance or (still good) expresses the existing emotional relationships people have with products.

On marketing’s good days it ultimately helps the best companies and products win over the bad stuff.

On marketing’s BEST days they actually get people to believe the important truths.

Next.

Evil: confusing evil messaging and evil actions

I brought up the unimportant versus important truths upfront because I believe marketing‘s evilness really should be defined by that. But. issues gets compounded not just by what they say, but also by how and when they say it.

So beyond the message we shouldn’t get confused by marketer’s actions (which are mostly not evil, just absurdly annoying – which I imagine could be construed as some level of evilness). I do wish more marketers would pay attention to information available to them. According to Pitney Bowes research, consumers surveyed in France, Germany, the UK and the U.S. have indicated which marketing activities draw them closer and which act as a repellent. If marketers would pay attention, people are quite clear about what they want from marketing interactions. If marketers would pay attention they would clearly see many of their actions are simply not having the intended effect. Worse, inappropriate communications often diminish a brand’s attractiveness, thereby losing people’s interest and ultimately even existing customers opt out.

So. The good things? Customer satisfaction surveys. 75% were fine with them. Great opportunity for marketers to “not sell” but rather learn and create customized messaging/experiences based on each consumer’s preferences.

“This survey confirms that brands should listen to consumers before they send out their communications. Every interaction must honor the interests of the customer first, only then is a relevant offer or call to action acceptable to consumers. Each conversation between a brand and a customer is an opportunity to delight or disappoint. We’re all learning how to do more of the former and less of the latter.”

PitneyBowes Reasearch

On websites, 59% say they appreciate personalization such as “Welcome <name>.” For transactional sites, especially where purchases are being made, it can be reassuring to know that the site recognizes your personal account details and has a record of interactions to draw upon <note: ‘personalization’ is being discussed in some fairly absurd creepy ways these days>.

Okay. Now the annoying stuff. And where marketing, I believe, just doesn’t help itself. Efforts which are meant to be inviting but are just plain irritating to most consumers.

– Asking customers to support a brand’s charity or ethical concerns (84%)

– Sending offers from third-parties (83%)

– Encouraging interaction with other consumers via an online community (81%).

Is this stuff evil? Of course not. But if you add these actions on top of the fact a marketer is most likely communicating an “unimportant truth” it is not only annoying but it is irrelevant. You have been intrusive and unimportant.

The double kiss of death.

Anyway.

Evil is always associated with people.

Truth or lie.

Annoying actions or relevant actions.

It all comes down to who is pulling the trigger. Here is where marketing runs into its most trouble: marketing people. Ok. Maybe it’s not the people , it’s just their common sense decision-making that seems to run into trouble. All too often it seems the marketing people manage to run into troubling ethical dilemmas and inevitably make some really bad, or certainly questionable, choices (with a consumer’s perspective in mind).

Most of the time these bad choices consist of less than the entire truth … or full disclosure of information the customer would want to know to make a reasonable decision. Let’s call this “selective truth telling.” Or, as earlier pointed out, selecting one thread in the fabric to point out. Or even “trying to convince you an unimportant truth is … well … important.” And, at its worst? Trying to convince you an unimportant truth is REALLY important. This is probably the best example of “the lie of silence” (which I have written about before). It’s all very tricky because most products & services tend to be good, useful products. And the ethical dilemma is how much information is it okay to hide <not tell> from the buyer to make a sale.

Oh. Silence. Omission. This is where many marketers will hide behind the excuse “but we only have so much time to capture someone’s attention.”

Shame on those marketers. You always have time to tell the important truth. And, in your heart of hearts, a good marketer knows that honesty and important truths win in the long run.

In the end, I do believe the thought of marketing as evil (in a true sense) is absurd. In an abstract sense (like Kristen mentions in her quote I used)? Well. Possibly. Evil is a strong word. It could be truly that marketing, when gone awry, can warp the true essence of the intent. And that may seem evil, but it is just wrong.

However.

Evil or not.

As a marketer myself, I would like to remind all marketers we have a responsibility. What we say and what we do DOES impact what people think and ultimately can affect what they do. With that ‘power’ comes a responsibility.

And it would be evil, yes, evil for us to forget that.

Black Friday seems to bring out the worst in marketing. Maybe it is because on that one day, above all, Marketing people forget their greater responsibility in their pursuit of a business responsibility – sell shit. And maybe that is where I should end. Its not about evil or good, or ethical versus unethical, its about not being a shit while selling shit. Period.

“Each one of us, then, should speak of his roads, his crossroads, his roadside benches; each one of us should make a surveyor’s map of his lost fields and meadows.

Thoreau said that he had a map of his fields engraved in his soul. And Jean Wahl once wrote … [“] The frothing of the hedges / I keep deep inside me [“] … Thus we cover the universe with drawings we have lived.”

—

Gaston Bachelard

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“You have to live a life to understand it. Tourists just pass through.”

—

Prince

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Well. This is about Experiences and how each experience we have creates an imprint. In other words. Why experiencing things & experiences are important.

Let me give you a reason not only for living, but experiencing Life. And I don’t means “savoring Life” type trite bullshit. I mean experiencing what is going on around you and being aware, to participate in Life … and actually experience the realities of the here & now <and not divert your attention toward some imaginative “boy, I imagined something completely different than what is occurring”>. Nor am I going to hijack any of that nutjob Eckhardt Tolle’s “live in the now” nonsense.

All I will suggest is that each experience, especially when you pay some attention to it, etches something in us.

Think of it like acquiring a tattoo. If you do accept the tattoo metaphor <or is that an analogy?> it seems to me you should take some care with what gets engraved upon you.

Why care?

The fact is Life is in constant movement and it can become incredibly tiring trying to dance with it all day long. In addition, your dance partner, named either ‘good’ or ‘bad’, typically arrives without invitation. I would suggest more of us would be slightly more content if we didn’t focus on the fact our dance partner made us smile <lets assume that is “good”> or is a complete asshole <lets call that dance partner “bad”>, but instead focus on the dance itself.

That, my friends, is experiencing Life.

The steps, the movement, that path and arc of the dance and the fields upon which our feet are placed in their movement. Thoreau tells us ‘ he had the map of his fields engraved in his soul.’ That is because he not only walked them, but he saw and felt the steps as he placed them.

This is all about recognizing the value of being aware. And it is this perceptive appreciation of the time & place, past & present, permits us a healthy balance of reality and memory.

Even better?

This awareness actually permits us to embed the moments better in our heads. This isn’t to say we will remember it correctly <because psychologically we suck at correctly & accurately remembering things> but rather the moments themselves are engraved upon us.

To be clear. This ‘thing’ we embed is actually a reflection of the natural gap in our minds between the complexity of reality and our ability to experience the complexity. What I mean by that is we tend to view reality heuristically. Therefore we don’t truly see reality but rather a simplified translation. Unfortunately, this simplified version naturally builds in some blind spots.

Now. There is a whole bunch of psychological mumbo jumbo about ‘dimensions of recognition’ and ‘symbolic complementariness of the person’s first-hand life events/involvements’, but it is much easier for everyday schmucks like you and I to think of it in a linear fashion — any initial connective personal involvement in a moment begets some reflection <how it may relate to other moments> which inevitably creates some ongoing narrative in our head.

Aw. Forget all the psychological stuff. Simplistically, the map of our Life is engraved upon our minds (if not our soul) assuming we actually are aware enough to experience the map as we traverse it. That is why awareness matters — our universe deserves to be covered with our drawings.

I am fairly sure a lot of people will read this and be shaking their heads going “I have great memories … I could cover my universe with drawings, you aren’t telling me anything of value”.

And you may be right. Absolutely. You may be.

But I would suggest that most people would actually end up papering their universe with someone else’s drawings of their experience … like taping postcards on the wall of everywhere you have been. That is not covering your universe with drawings of what you have lived.

Those are simply superficial surface expressions of real actual experience.

Let me go back to my tattoo metaphor.

If I were to get a tattoo on my soul I imagine, at least me, I would not choose a tattoo of a postcard, but rather I would prefer choosing an expression of what I felt when I placed my feet where that postcard was. In other words, I don’t want my tattoo to be a tourist with Life, I want it to be an expression of how I lived it.

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. “

Franklin D. Roosevelt

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Life barrages us with fairly relentless consistency. Usually that consistency is made up of a random combination of all the things we have planned <our “let’s control our destiny” stuff> with the unexpected and the unforeseen which inevitably makes us feel like we are out of control.

This can be personal.

This can be work organizational.

Heck.

This can even be on a country level.

Regardless of the grander perspective, on any given day you look around at the relative carnage of the day seeing your plans in disarray and hopes & dreams nowhere in close proximity to your current reality and you think to yourself “how the hell did we get into this shithole.”

That is where conviction comes into play.

You, or we, are not really in a shithole. You just have had what you thought would happen or should be happening, well, not happen. And, because Life has consistently made you run this random gauntlet before, you have some threads of belief that exactly the same thing will happen again tomorrow.

In other words. Your conviction of ‘something better beyond the horizon’ is a little blurrier than it was the day before.

Look.

This is not about Hope, this is about belief or conviction. I say that because each of us has conviction within us. It is the most basic conviction that no matter how bad it is it will get better and there truly is something better somewhere beyond the horizon. That’s not hope, that’s belief. That’s not optimism, that’s simply proof of survival <I survived yesterday so its fairly likely i will survive tomorrow>.

Yet, while I am 99.9% sure that this conviction resides within each and every one of us I am also 99.9% sure that all of us encounter something at some point which makes us question or doubt that conviction.

I call this ‘the bridge of conviction.’

Think of it this way.

Life is a long winding path. And, on occasion you come to a bridge. You hate heights and the bridge can maybe look a little shaky on occasion.

You stand at the end of it and … well … pause.

You maybe even question the conviction & wisdom of the path you are on.

What makes you finally take that first step … and the next … and the next … and cross that bridge is the conviction that on the other side is something better.

I would also like to point out that it is this conviction which makes you look forward and not backwards.

“Better” inherently cannot reside in the past. It cannot be found somewhere in retracing your steps on the path you have taken. Nor is it really a comparison thing. It’s simply a version of change <I have changed in some way from yesterday &, in general, change is good — (whisper: even though I cannot quite put my finger on what exactly changed) ..>.

What was will be as it was and no longer exists as what you once knew. Conviction inherently knows this <although all of us fight conviction on this on occasion>.

I say all this just to point out that no matter how bad the current time or situation may look, more likely than not, it is actually not that bad.

In other words.

No matter how bad one person may appear to affect your view on what is … what will be will most likely be affected much less by that one person, or one event, than you think now.

No matter how bad YOU view what is … what will be will most likely be affected much less by Life, or even the current situation, than you think now and more by what you end up doing and choices you make tomorrow <and the days afterwards>.

No matter how bad the horizon may be blurred in your view, something better really does reside beyond the horizon.

Why do I feel so confident in saying so?

“We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon. “

Conviction is a powerful, resilient, source of energy which, 99% of the time, is what gets you to the horizon.